INmune Bio Inc. is a US-based biopharmaceutical company focussed on therapies arising from the innate immune system.  The UK subsidiary is INmune Bio International, based in London and with research/manufacturing laboratories leased from the Royal Free London NHS Trust . The company’s lead immunotherapy product is currently in clinical trials for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome and ovarian cancer. This alongside other key clinical trials created a need for Senior Research Assistants with cell biology lab experience. INmune Bio originally needed two Senior Research Assistants and trusted Cogent Skills to recruit the best candidates and take care of all employment responsibilities through our outsourced employment service.

We spoke to Geoff Cox, Skills Account Manager, Cogent Skills, about the challenge for INmune Bio

As a small and very busy team INmune bio didn’t have time to complete the whole recruitment process themselves. It can also be very difficult to find high calibre candidates for such specific roles through the normal channels. They also wanted to avoid the cost and complication of setting up back office staff to turn employment or deal with the extra employment responsibilities. This meant that our outsourced employment service was the perfect fit. The whole recruitment process was done for them by a recruitment team who understand their needs and have years of recruitment experience in the sector. Once the best candidates were hired Cogent Skills took on the role of employer, and all HR responsibilities, meaning INmunre Bio could confidently expand their team while focusing fully on the important work they do.

We spoke to Prof Mark Lowdell, Chief Scientific Officer, INmune Bio, about why he chose Cogent Skills and his experience with us:

I selected Cogent Skills on the basis of their customer service..The experience has been very good so far and, despite approaches from several competitors over the past year, we chose to remain with Cogent Skills and have used them for additional recruitment.

Caroline Lees, Recruiment Co-ordinator, Cogent Skills said:

We were delighted to find the perfect candidates for INmune Bio. We understand how difficult it can be for companies to find the right people for such specific technical roles. As we specialise in recruiting for the sector we have advantages over generic recruitment teams such as link Universities throughout the country, as well as our own extensive pool of relevant candidates,

We also know how much busy customers appreciate our recruitment process, particularly our video interview capability…we conduct the first round of interviews via video based on questions provided by the hiring manager, we can then supply them with the recording of the shortlisted candidates. This allows them to get the fullest picture of the candidate while saving them a lot of time in the early stages of recruitment.

Following success in the original clinical trial, which moved on to the next phase, and was expanded, Cogent Skills supported the recruitment and employment of two further Senior Research Assistants in May 2022.

I’m personally extremely happy with the quality of candidates through Cogent Skills -Ben Weil, Head of GMP Process Engineering, INmune Bio